According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Universal health coverage (UHC) refers to all individuals having access to required health services, of sufficient quality, without suffering financial hardship. While many health systems in Africa are striving to achieve UHC in the near future, most are still facing the perils of lack of access to essential life saving medicines, malnutrition, high levels of child and maternal mortality and the growing double burden of infectious and chronic diseases. These challenges call for a close examination of the progress toward UHC and formulation of lessons to learn from success stories. This forum will focus on presenting case studies from different parts of Africa in the areas of accessibility of essential medicines and the situation of health technology assessment as a basis for resource allocations for UHC.